The World Family Map -- a final report, in which we find that 80 percent of adults in Spain support the idea of a woman deciding to have a child on her own, while 78 percent think a child is happiest with a mother and a father. Go figure.

Moms who are employed full-time outside the home simply have less time for everything outside of working hours. It’s a logistical reality, not a moral judgment.

Today’s mothers don’t have much time to themselves, despite labour-saving home appliances, according to a UK survey. This seems to be because they have to be “perfect mothers” as well as go out to work.

One of the most studied aspects of childhood in recent decades is early,
non-maternal childcare. Research tends to show benefits for a child’s
cognitive development but not for emotional wellbeing and behaviour. Now
a study has found that youngsters are less likely to succeed at school
if their mothers return to work within a year of their birth.

Here is something else from Canada: commentary by Andrea Mrozek of the
Institute of Marriage and Family on recent childcare research which
purports to show no negative overall effects of mothers working outside
the home during the first year of life.

A reader in Canada has alerted me to a really great article -- a profile
of a musical mother who is keeping up her career but not letting it get
in the way of having a family. Child number four is on the way and
won’t be the last if she and her husband have their way.

In an essay headed “Female power” The Economist has celebrated “one of
the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years” -- that is,
“millions of people who were once dependent on men have taken control
of their own economic fates”. In other words, women have gone out to
work and stayed there.